The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Paul's follies A recent Paul Martin joke is as follows: A teacher in a small Ontario town asks her class how many of them are Paul Martin fans. Not really knowing what a Paul Martin fan is, but wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except one boy. The teacher asks Johnny why he decided to be different. Johnny says, "I'm not a Paul Martin fan." The teacher says, "Why aren't you a Paul Martin fan?" Johnny says, "I'm a Stephen Harper fan." The teacher asks why he's a Stephen Harper fan. The boy says "Well, my mom's a Stephen Harper fan and my dad's a Stephen Harper fan, so I'm a Stephen Harper fan!" The teacher is kind of angry, because this is Ontario, so she asks, "What if your mom was a moron and your dad was an idiot, what would that make you?" Johnny replied, "That would make me a Paul Martin fan." Prime Minister Martin may not think all Canadian voters are "idiots", but he certainly gives the appearance of not having much respect for their intelligence, even those that are devout Liberals. A number of his pre-election antics are disturbing to even his own supporters and encouraging to those who want to see him turfed. One feature is the continuing alienation of the Jean Chretien Liberals whom one would expect will do little to help him win the election. In her last day in Parliament after a stormy and noisy 20-year career, Sheila Copps turned her venom at her leader, saying he will do poorly and she will be back when he's gone. John Manley and other Chretienites agreed. No patronage appointments for them! Martin did receive the support of former Tory leader Joe Clark who obviously has a hatred of Harper. Paul's follies' have been many. His Liberal majority shut down the sponsorship inquiry committee before it had a chance to see how much of the lost $150 million had filtered back to the Liberal party or even to his own campaign. So far only bureaucrats, not politicians, have been implicated which is the way Paul wants it. This will give Harper and the NDP plenty of campaign ammunition. As the Grits tried to "deep-six" the sponsorship scandal, another one popped up. The new Human Resources Minister announced changes to the employment insurance programme, changes that will give a $1,000 "bonus" to seasonal workers in Quebec and the Maritimes. Vote buying? You bet! The employment insurance premiums that workers pay is a scandal in itself, as workers have been overcharged for years. Finance Minister Martin and the Liberal government have continuously spent the surpluses instead of cutting the premiums. Stephen Harper pledges to roll back the premiums and give Canadian workers more take-home pay. Martin and his advisors have alienated many Liberal constituency associations by not trusting them to nominate their own candidates, but rather appointing a number of "star candidates" in areas they want to win or hold. As Chretien did, Martin used a section in the party's constitution which allows the leader to personally pick candidates. This has caused open hostility in places such as Vancouver where the president of the B.C. Liberal Party was selected as candidate and other hopefuls were refused the right to seek the nomination. All in all, such pre-election antics should be enough to doom the Liberals to at best a minority government. One trouble spot is Quebec where all surveys show them lagging badly behind the Bloc. With a 15-20 per cent lead, the separatist party should do very well. Martin appealed to Quebecers, saying he needs Quebec. Bloc leader Duceppe's response? "Quebec doesn't need him!" With the Liberal vote concentrated in urban Montreal, a good bet is that the Bloc will get most of the seats. Paul Martin's campaign team has prepared a number of "attack ads" on Stephen Harper, hoping to picture him as a right-wing fanatic, similar to the hatchet job they did on Stockwell Day. The ads were leaked long before the election call and it will be interesting to see if they surface. If they do, the Tories have "attack ads ready to go on Martin and his "follies." His team appears to be living in the past as Harper, granted a bit of a redneck, is no Stockwell Day. Although an MP from Alberta, he was born in Ontario, speaks fluent French and is more than an intellectual match for any party leader. His party's platform (next article) is designed to appeal to the mass of voters, not only the right wing. Isn't it interesting that while former Tory leader Joe Clark is playing the "bitter old man" game in not supporting the national Conservatives, that former PM Brian Mulroney, whose party was undone by Harper's former Reform group in the early 90s, has endorsed the new party and is proving helpful in Quebec. Brian is now retired but giving advice to the new leader. Don't expect to see Mulroney on the campaign trail, but at least (unlike Joe Who?) he is backing his own new party.
